


Salt of the Earth

by TheMarkOfEyghon



Series: BtVS: One Shots [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Character Study, Exploring Alonna's childhood, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMarkOfEyghon/pseuds/TheMarkOfEyghon
Summary: Is this the life that their mother would have wanted for them? She wishes she knew.*Moments from Alonna's childhood.
Series: BtVS: One Shots [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1318334





	Salt of the Earth

Alonna inhales shakily and blinks once, twice, three times against the tears that are making her eyes prickle and burn. But she doesn’t cry, not even as Charles pulls the biggest piece of glass out of her leg and splashes the wound with Hydrogen peroxide. It burns like fire is licking up the front of her leg, but she doesn’t let herself make a sound. Just squeezes her hands into tighter fists and stares out across the warehouse that they call “home” now. 

The vampires that broke in were dust now and injuries minimal. Alonna, who had been grabbed by a vampire who tried to escape through a window with her, Jared, who’d been knocked out during the ensuing fight with the pack of fangers, and Darren, who Charles had punched in the face the moment that the dust settled ‘cuz he was the one who was supposed to be keeping watch of everyone too young or weak to go out on night-time patrols.

“There. Just need to wrap it up,” Charles says. His expression has been set as hard as stone since he’d realized that she was one of the ones who’d been hurt, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be softening up anytime soon. “You doing good, girl?” 

“Yeah. I’m okay.” 

She’s gonna say that she is no matter how bad she hurts, cause she wants to be tough like him. ((Has)) to be tough like him, or he’s never gonna let her go out and fight monsters like he does. 

“Course you are. Growing up strong.” 

Charles smiles briefly and squeezes her hand before he reaches for the bandages. 

_(Strong like him. That’s always the goal.)_

*

She doesn’t miss their mom. Not like Charles does. Maybe it’s because she was so young when they lost her and the only face she sees when she thinks back to who’s always tucked her in, made sure she had breakfast, and scolded her for every bad decision is her brother’s. So, no, she doesn’t miss the woman that Charles sometimes tells her that she looks like. 

But there’s an empty space where that missing should be.

And she doesn’t see anyone but herself in her own reflection.

_(She hates the vampires all the more for it.)_

*

The boys leave with fifteen and come back with ten. There’s blood and tears on her brother’s face when they stumble back into the warehouse and he doesn’t say anything to anyone as he collapses onto one of their musty, stolen sofas. 

No one will tell her, or anyone else, what happened. They won, she knows, but the cost of that win was more than they had ever paid before. Loss never gets any easier for any of them, the space that had once held those who had fallen never gets any less empty. Alonna doesn’t think that death is something she’ll ever get numb to.

It’s not something that ((any)) of them will get numb to.

There will be tears, later, when they burn the bodies in the fire. Bite marks on their neck mean that they can’t be buried in the badlands graveyard. It’s too much of a risk, no way to be 100% certain that they won’t rise again. It’ll be horrible, but Alonna promises herself now, as she tends to the wounds of those who had been injured, that she won’t look away. That she owes them that much; that they deserve to be seen and mourned.

_(She wonders if, one day, she’ll be standing there watching her brother’s body burn. The thought chills her to the core.)_

*

“You gotta swing harder than that.” 

Alonna clenches her teeth as Darren goads her, taking a defensive stance again. She’s fourteen now, the same age as a lot of the boys had been when they’d started going on out on patrols, and her request to be allowed to do the same had been met with fighting lessons with ((him)) of all people. 

He swings and she ducks, popping back up with a feinted right-hook followed by a kick that lands squarely into his chest and knocks him backward. 

He doesn’t fall, but he does look a little less smug.

“How’s that?” She asks, feeling cocky. 

He answers with a swing to her face and she does hit the ground. Her palms scrape against the concrete floor and she hisses in pain.

“HEY!” 

Charles is on his feet, running over. But Alonna is faster, jumping back up and holding both of her hands out to stop him. 

“I’m fine!” She says, quickly, trying to wave him away. 

Darren has both of his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but there’s no apology in his expression. “Easy, man! Chill! There’s no such thing as a fair fight with fangers. You know that. And she was getting full of herself. Gotta cut that attitude out before she gets out there into a real scrap.” 

“…I won’t make that mistake again,” Alonna says. She’s going to have a bruise where he hit her, but she refuses to take the out that Charles is giving her and call it quits so soon into her first lesson. “Come on. Let’s do it again. I’m fine.” 

_(Charles wouldn’t have interrupted anyone else’s lessons like this. He still sees her as a baby. Weaker than the rest of them ‘cuz she’s young or ‘cuz she’s a girl. She has to prove him wrong.)_

*

“Do you ever think about going back to school?” 

Charles looks up from his breakfast, eyebrows raised. “Who’s got time for that?” 

He says it like a joke, but something in Alonna’s chest twinges. The unfairness of it all, maybe, knowing that her brother could have grown up to do great things; be a doctor or a lawyer with that brain of his, but that he’d never had the chance to live up to his potential and probably never would. 

_(Is this the life that their mother would have wanted for them? She wishes she knew.)_

*

There’s a grave with the name “Mia Gunn” on it. And in the ground, there, is the body of their mother. They come here, once a year, the day before the anniversary of their mother's death so that they don’t run into anyone else who might be mourning her the day of.

Charles is the only one who speaks. He tells their mother everything that they’d done that year, what they’ve accomplished. He brags about the monsters that he and his gang have killed, and about the way that Alonna’s studying from stolen textbooks has been going. He talks about his hopes for the future, his promise that he won’t rest until ever fanger in the city is dust in the wind for what they’d done to their family and families like theirs.

And he does all of this with misty eyes and a croaky voice, while Alonna stands next to him and feels cold because of the chill in the air and not for any loss that’s left aching in her. 

_(She wishes she remembered her mother well enough to love her like he does.)_

*

There’s laughter in the warehouse, today. Excitable chatter, banter, and playful arguments. Alonna slurps on a cherry Icee and flicks away a ball of tinfoil that was lobbed at her head, nailing one of the other girls with it, who laughs and throws it to the next person. 

These days are few and far between. But sometimes vampires are loaded when they dust, and wallets are collected, and that means they can stock up on more than just the barest essentials of food. Bread and butter is hard to live on. Cherry Iees are way tastier. 

_(These soap bubble moments are joy are what makes it worth living for.)_

*

“I wanna be allowed to patrol with you and I’m not taking no for an answer. You need more help out there. We’re burying more bodies than you’re leaving with, lately.” 

“You think that’s a good argument to make me let you go out there?” 

Alonna refuses to waver, no matter how hard her brother glares at her. 

“I think this is my city too and I’m going to protect it. Even if you don’t want me to. You can either let me come out there with you and have your back, or I can go out on my own. But, either way, I’m fighting just like the rest of you.” 

_(She’ll win the argument this time.)_

*

Alonna shoves her stake into the chest of her first vampire and tries not to inhale the dust that it crumbles into. She’s aching and sore, having taken more hits than she’d thrown. But she’d won, still standing to tell the tale of it. 

Her gaze finds her brother’s and, if she’s not mistaken, she thinks that she sees him smile. 

She dusts off her brown coat that smells like vanilla and menthols and pulls another stake from its pocket, jumping into the fray again. Beautiful like her mother and tough like her brother. 

_(Just like she’d always hoped she’d be.)_


End file.
